1925: Johnny Peirson (full name John Frederick Peirson) is born in Winnipeg, Manitoba. He spent his full playing career–11 seasons–with the Bruins from 1946 to 1958. In that time, he played in the All-Star Game twice (1950 and 1951) and had a 50-point season, a career-high, in 1951-52. Upon his retirement, he went into commentating, first in the radio world and then in the land of television during its relative infancy.

1984: Byron Bitz is born in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. Originally drafted in 2003–as part of the strong 2003 draft class–by the Bruins, he decided to play his full college time at Cornell University before going pro. While with the Big Red, Bitz was part of the 2005 ECAC champion team and was team captain in 2006-07. That was a good year for him in terms of awards: he also won Cornell awards for determination and overcoming injury, plus he was inducted into the school’s honor society for seniors. Following his graduation, he spent time with Providence until coming up to Boston in January 2009. He came very very close to a hat trick in a February 2009 game against the Florida Panthers, but fell just one goal short. His penchant for physicality made him quite popular among many Bruins fans, but after about half of his second season, he was part of the 2010 trade that brought Dennis Seidenberg and Matt Bartkowski to Boston. Because of injuries, he would only score one goal as part of the Panthers. How is that so? He had lower-body and elbow injuries soon after his trade, and then surgery for a sports hernia created complications that would have him miss all of 2010-11 in total. Florida didn’t bring him back, so he became an unrestricted free agent and signed with the Vancouver Canucks. His injury issues continued, though, keeping him on the sidelines until January of this year. After some conditioning time in Vancouver’s Chicago AHL affiliate, he returned to the big club for 10 games. February saw him score his first goal since that one Florida gino so long ago.

2011: David Krejci enjoys his day with the Stanley Cup. The Stanley Cup makes a short trip to his Czech Republic hometown of Sternberk and fellow Czech Tomas Kaberle joins Krejci for his day (just as Krejci tagged along for Kaberle’s the day before). Sternberk, a town of 14,000, was packed with people vying for a glimpse of glory. But first, Krejci stopped by his parents’ house to take pictures and see his girlfriend Naomi too. But those fans waited in the rain to see Stanley when Krejci took the Cup into the town square. Both the Czech Bruins took time to take pictures and sign autographs. Then, Krejci took Stanley back home for a party of more than 100 people that night.